Berserker

It was over almost as soon as it happened. The distorted, glass-like shards that made up the rift rushed to envelop both Jack and Kane. A yellow light blinded them briefly. When their vision returned, they were standing at the entrance to a dilapidated keep: the rift of fragmented glass no longer visible. The realm in which they now stood was cast in the orange light of dusk. 

Two large stone towers stood high on both sides of the keep. Long, broken walls connected them to an archway where a tall wooden gate used to guard the fort from invaders. No more. What was left of the gate was broken and scattered beneath the looming archway of cut stone. 

Jack and Kane let go of each other's hands and turned their heads to see a forest of oak. 

"What would we find if we were to go in that direction?" asked Jack. 

"The gods would inevitably guide you back here to this very spot; even if you walked dead straight. They tend to make the next lanes, a term for the realms along The Highway, fade into the last. For aesthetic sakes, of course. The gods seem to prefer it when everything looks proper. Even in a shit-heap like The Highway." 

A loud crash, like the sound of large rocks tumbling over one another, sounded from deep within the keep. 

Jack and Kane shared a look, then turned back to the fort. 

"Do monsters tend to fight one another?" asked Jack rhetorically. He assumed they didn't. 

"No. There must be other souls here. It's not uncommon." 

They approached the keep with caution. Ripper was raised at an angle in one of Jack's hands, and the other was hovering behind him, ready to join its counterpart. Kane had an arrow nocked on his bow, and his fingers lightly pulled on the string. 

The moment they passed the rundown gate, echoing hisses sounded from every direction. Undead soldiers in shredded leather armour stumbled into the courtyard: their jaws all pried off, exposing bone and sinew. Each of their tongues were freakishly long and seemed to hover like snaking limbs. They charged in unison as Kane let loose a spread of arrows: one real and six spectral. 

They all found their targets. 

The soldiers fell with audible thumps as their masses hit the ground, only for more to replace them. They rushed from behind corners and doorways, and Jack charged back at them with a hearty war-cry, Ripper risen above his head before coming down upon one of the undead. They rose their weak, rusted blade in defence, and Ripper devoured it, along with its wielder. 

From the backline, a slimy, rotting tongue coiled itself around Jack's left elbow and pulled a hand free of Ripper's grip. As he rose the blade onehanded to sever the wet appendage, another took hold of his right arm. Two other undead soldiers charged him, and Jack almost burst blood vessels trying to use brute force to break free from the tongues' grips. It wasn't working. 

An arrow hit one of the charging undead. A second later, the other fell too: both hit dead centre between the eyes. Kane ran towards his ally and picked off the one with its seemingly infinite tongue around Jack's sword arm. The soldier fell from the top of a small, low-ceilinged barracks and landed on several boxes, the tongue around jack soon going limp. 

With Ripper free of its restraints, it came down on the remaining tongue with one swift fell. The undead it came from was upon Jack now: caring not for its bleeding, severed appendage. But with a hefty kick to its chest, the decaying soldier flew back onto the ground; he finished it off by grabbing Ripper's hilt with both hands, pointing it downward and driving its tip through the soldier's face. 

Kane soon Joined him in the centre of the courtyard, the cloudy dusk of the keep-realm forever painting the world a deep orange. When tongues flew to constrict either of the two souls, Ripper found them. And whenever an undead soldier decided to charge, Kane loosened an arrow through their rotting skull. It wasn't quite a dance, but they moved around each other with a seasoned fluidity. When an undead got too close on Kane's front, he would call to Jack, and the swordsman would use nimble footwork to twirl around his companion, who would do the same, and decapitate, rend, or slice the oncoming threat. 

They were both incredibly well trained in the arts of their weapons. Every now and then, when the hoard they faced got too dense, Kane would unleash a volley of spectral arrows to thin the crowds. And half of the time, Jack didn't even use his sword's blade to kill. He kicked, caving in chests, and grappled, throwing the undead to the ground before crushing their rotting skulls with a solid fist: swiftly returning to his feet to sever a head from its pedestal. 

As the number of undead pouring out of the keep thinned, the toll of consistent battle was evidently wearing the pair down. Kane's arrows flew with less stopping power, and he was periodically rolling his shoulders in discomfort. Jack's chest expanded and deflated beneath his torn, blood-stained shirt as his lungs desperately tried to fill themselves. 

When only three undead soldiers remained, Jack deflected an angry sword strike with Ripper and drove the blade hilt-deep into the soldier's chest. He then stood to his side, Ripper still imbedded inside the previous undead and kicked another soldier who had gotten too close. With a mighty pull, he yanked Ripper from the corpse and cut his new opponent in half horizontally, each piece falling with audible thumps. 

Then Kane missed his first shot; probably due to fatigue. Jack heard the arrow slap against the keep's stone wall and turned. "DUCK!" he commanded, and Kane ducked. With Ripper raised above his head, Jack heaved like he'd never heaved before and sent his trusty blade somersaulting in the air like a giant shuriken. Ripper found skull, then stone as its momentum carried the undead back through the air and imbedded its tip in the wall of the keep. The web-like crack that formed in the wall was a testament to Jacks strength and Ripper's sturdiness. 

The pair stood panting heavily, covered in blood and chunks of viscera. The eternal dusk, being eternal, still shone the same dull orange on the horror show of a courtyard that the two souls had created. It made it impossible to judge how much time they had spent fighting; only the body count of forty corpses gave any sort of indication. After a few recuperating moments passed, Jack moved to collect Ripper. His first try failed. Its blade was several inches in the stone behind the undead's skull. Planting one foot against the wall, he yanked again. Ripper came free, and the two-time corpse dropped to the ground. 

Kane observed the feat in awe, then removed his hood. His green eyes were somehow sharper than before against his short, blonde hair. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his thumb as he stood, still venting short breaths. "You fight like you've been doing it since you could walk," said Kane through his panting. 

"Feels like I have," Jack replies, in-between short breaths of his own. "At first, my body seemed to fight by itself... I was terrified of the monsters that appeared in the Emberwood's forest. But this blade... It was almost like it taught me to wield it; like it was guiding my every swing. My strikes felt so natural. Now, it feels as if we fight together, as two beings. If I lost this blade, so to would I be." 

Kane let out a short, breathy laugh. "You're a terrifying man, Jack. You know that? You must have been someone of great importance before your real-death." 

"Can't have been that important if you don't recognise me," said Jack. 

"We cannot remember those who enter The Highway. Their very existence bends around our minds. If I were to guess, I'd say you were a king." 

"You flatter us," mocked Jack. "What about me shouts expensive gowns and extravagant jewels?" He chuckled deeply. "Besides, King Jack has an awful ring to it." 

"I've also wondered why you would scar your own back with your name... Are you certain your Jack? A nickname, perhaps?" 

Jack began to chew on Kane's words. "I'm certain it holds a deep connection with who I was. If not my name, then it belonged to someone close to me." 

Kane looked upon Jack with a mixture of puzzlement and awe. "Your brute strength and skill with a blade, paired with a broad Intelligence and calmness. It is rare to find someone with both properties. I would be very interested to speak to you with your memories intact." 

"Perhaps a Bearer of Essence holds them captive. Waiting for me to pry it them from their corpse." 

The blonde archer smirked. "I ache for the day that we slay it." As Kane spoke, the barracks wall further into the keep exploded open. They both covered their faces as small shards of rock flew past them and pinged into the tower behind. 

As the dust screen faded, a man in light armour, a mix of leather bottoms and a chainmail vest, stood in the opening holding the corpse of an undead by its neck; a rock-like film coated their arm. His brown hair was tied in a ponytail that brushed against the soul's nape, and a red band held the strands together. He dropped the corpse when he saw Kane specifically and gave a sharp-toothed smile, as if he had filed each one of them himself. The rock-like shimmer faded and was replaced by the familiar look of skin. 

"We have got to stop meeting like this, Kane!" said the new arrival, his arms out to his sides in a welcoming gesture. 

"Jack..." muttered the archer, a sudden panic consuming him. "We're not equipped for this..." 

Jack looked puzzled. "Who is he?" 

The new arrival spoke before Kane could. Though Kane didn't seem like he was going to answer anyway. "Kane never was one to open up easily. My name is Alistair. It upsets me that you haven't mentioned me to your new meat-shield, Kane." He stepped out of the opening in the keep barracks and slowly approached the pair of souls with long, clacking strides as each step of his heavy boots met the ground. 

Fuelled by pure fear, Kane edged back several paces, and his bow rose as if of its own accord, its string pulled taut: an arrow nocked. Jack mimicked his ally by raising the tip of Ripper, albeit with some hesitance. "Who is he?" repeated Jack, stepping back along with him. 

"There's no time to explain!" Kane argued, his voice riddled with desperation. He loosened an arrow without another word alongside six spectral ones. 

They flew fast. Exceptionally fast. 

They curved in perfect arcs to home in on their target. But Alistair did not waver in his advance. The moment the arrows were upon him, his body stiffened and stilled, frozen in place, and it swiftly turned to rock. The arrows pinged off the armour, and just as soon as it appeared, it was gone, replaced once again by flesh. 

Alistair resumed his march with a cackle. "You haven't learned your lesson, Kane!" he sung, an air of insanity swirling around Kane's name. 

Unsure of how to gauge the situation, Jack inhaled deeply. Then released a heavy breath. "Fuck it," he muttered, and Jack flipped Ripper around his wrist in a show of cockiness before turning a light walk into a noisy charge, blade held high. 

"NO!" screamed Kane, but it was unheard over Jack's eagerness to fight. Alistair's sharp toothed grin climbed to his ears as he unsheathed two Iron clubs from his back. They caught Ripper in a cross as it came down upon their master, and Jack rose a leg to kick at Alistair's stomach. The entire middle section of the mad warrior's body turned to rock, and he was sent sliding backwards under the raw power of Jack's inhuman strength. 

The dual wielding berserker was completely unharmed as his mid-section returned to normal. Even his breathing hadn't changed. "You're a strong one, aren't you?" he noted, his previous insanity dulled and replaced by a cautious intelligence. "Something tells me you won't squirm quite like Kane does... Just thinking about it... I am most looking forward to breaking you." His insanity had returned, and with it, a perverse keenness. 

Jack charged again, and the pair exchanged several blows. Ripper danced gracefully with the iron clubs, but Jack's strength was too much for his weapons to be stopped by just one of the masses of metal, and each time he struck with it, they were forced to work together to counter its weight. 

Even when Ripper 'did' land a hit, Alistair's body formed hard patches of rock on the surface of his skin. The blade ate through leather and chainmail like the Emberwood's rotting bark, but it always bounced off the stone skin underneath. 

Kane was still stood frozen, and In Jack's mind he knew Alistair was not a man Kane could defeat. Nor could he. The berserker's defence was solid, and his determination was iron. Whatever history Kane had with the mad warrior; it shook the man to his marrow. 

Uninterested in the archer, Alistair swung both clubs horizontally, and Ripper rose to stop them. It absorbed the duo's impact, but Alistair's shoulder hardened, and his body quickly grew heavy. So much so that the stone paving that made up the courtyard cracked beneath him. With unnatural speed and strength, his hardened shoulder slammed into Jack with the momentum of his club swing. The swordsman was sent flying back into the keep wall with a bone-shattering crunch, and Ripper clattered to the ground below shortly followed by Jack. 

Only just coming back to his scrambled senses, Kane's jaw was agape, his wide-eyed gaze fixed on Jack. If he wasn't dead, thought the archer, he would be soon. 

On the other side of the yard, Alistair sheathed his clubs over his back nonchalantly. He knew Kane was completely powerless against him. "You've really fucked me off, Kane," said Alistair, who followed Kane's gaze to Jack's still body. 

Kane didn't respond. His eyes were stretched in terror: a child lost. 

"I'm going to kill you quickly, first," Alistair whispered softly, eerily, just loud enough for Kane to hear. "Then I'll rip out my own heart, and come back to do it again, slower. Then even slower the next." with a blood curdling stare, he returned his sights to the quivering soul. 

Kane swallowed and slowly turned. Both were wide-eyed, but for opposite reasons. One with fear, panic, agony. And the other lust, hatred, and evil. 

"I shouldn't remember..." trembled Kane. "What you did to me..." 

Alistair's haunted gaze hardened. "...You're right. You shouldn't. But that makes this all the more fun." He marched toward the frozen archer with sheer excitement in his eyes and threw a fist of solid stone.